THE MEDIA BUSINESS: ADVERTISING -- ADDENDA

By Stuart Elliott

Published: June 15, 2004

As the broadcast television networks conclude selling commercial time ahead of the start of the 2004-5 prime-time season, their results are coming in about as had been expected: two up, two down, two flat.

The advance-sales bazaar, known as the upfront market, is ending as three networks that had still been negotiating last week (ABC, CBS and UPN) said yesterday that they had joined the three that finished last week (Fox Broadcasting, NBC and WB).

The two-tiered market resulted from decisions by ABC, CBS and UPN to bargain more intensely for rate increases.

''We were firm on pricing, and we're very happy with what we got,'' said JoAnn Ross, president for sales at CBS, who negotiated for that network and its Viacom sibling, UPN.

CBS will end with about $2.4 billion in advance sales, Ms. Ross said, compared with about $2.2 billion in the upfront market last spring ahead of the 2003-4 season, while UPN will conclude with as much as $350 million, compared with $250 million to $275 million last spring.

The CBS figure met most estimates; the UPN number was a bit higher.

At ABC (owned by the Walt Disney Company), ''we just kept selling, going back to the customers to tell them we had a lot of good shows in development'' to replace series that performed poorly in 2003-4, said Mike Shaw, president for sales and marketing for the ABC Television Network.

''There's a little bit of a 'show me' sentiment on our customers' part,'' Mr. Shaw said. ''We're going to have to deliver.''

ABC sold $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion in commercial time, he added, along with an additional $500 million to $600 million sold separately for sports programs like ''Monday Night Football.''

Those figures -- compared with $1.65 billion to $1.7 billion sold last spring excluding the sports money -- were about what analysts estimated ABC would sell.

The other network that declined from last year's total along with ABC was WB (owned by Time Warner and the Tribune Company), which sold about $675 million compared with $700 million last spring.

The two networks that were flat were NBC (part of the NBC Universal company, which is controlled by General Electric), which remains the sales leader at $2.9 billion, compared with $2.9 billion to $3 billion, and Fox (owned by the News Corporation), at $1.5 billion to $1.6 billion, compared with $1.6 billion last spring.

As the broadcast upfront market concludes, agencies are still negotiating on behalf of advertisers to buy commercial time in the upfront markets for cable television, syndicated series and Hispanic networks.